Virtualization technology enables the creation of isolated environments for running applications on a host system. Some virtualization technologies, such as virtual machines, emulate multiple system platforms within a single host system, where each system platform includes a hardware layer and a full operating system environment.
Other virtualization technologies, such as operating-system-level virtualization, also allow multiple application instances to run simultaneously on a single host system. In these cases, however, overhead is significantly reduced given that multiple operating system environments are not emulated. These virtualization technologies provide application instances with a layer of protection, as they are isolated from the host and its applications.
As a result of application instances being isolated from the host operating system, however, traditional methods with respect to the host operating system are unable to accomplish effective live traffic monitoring for the application instances. For similar reasons, the detection and resolution of security breaches is equally challenging in such virtualization systems.